The ocean is full of tiny plastic particles – we found a way to track them with satellites
Plastic fragments washed onto Schiavonea beach in Calabria, Italy, in a 2019 storm. Alfonso Di Vincenzo/KONTROLAB /LightRocket via Getty Images By Christopher Ruf, University of Michigan Plastic is the most common type of debris floating in the world’s oceans. Waves and sunlight break much of it down into smaller particles called microplastics – fragments less than 5 millimeters across, roughly the size of a sesame seed. To understand how microplastic pollution is affecting the ocean, scientists need to know how…